The Great Escape
by Countess of Ole
Summary: The brothers' escape, evil plans, sibling bickering. What's not to like? Spoiler alert! work in process
1. Escape from Spire

I do not claim ownership over any of the characters or places in the following story and acknowledge that they belong to Cyan. Now that we've gotten that out of the way…

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Excitement was brewing up inside him. The last experiment had been a success. Sure he may have blown his lab to kingdom come, but it was a success! Sirrus was climbing up the billions of stairs to get to the very top of the spire he'd grown to hate so much. Let's face it, if you were stuck in a place for twenty years having to wear the same clothes every day you'd hate it too.

As soon as he reached the top, he stopped, caught his breath and stretched his legs. He reached into the container he held in his left hand and felt empty container.

"Wha..?" he muttered as he eyed the interior to confirm what his hand had already told him. There was nothing in the container. Had he actually been so excited that he forgot to put the explosive crystal figurines into it to begin with? "NO!" he exclaimed, hearing glumly as it echoed from spire to distant spire. The next thing he knew, he was trudging down the stairs again, flight by miserable flight. He reached the place where he'd first camped out-- where he'd decided to imitate the painting, which his parents always seemed to have, with crystal statues.

He went to the hole by the pentagonal white crystal, and looked at the broken rope tied to a rock on one side of it. Bad memories were associated with that rock. He could recall it perfectly.

He had looked at the knot he had tied with very great satisfaction, "double passed… through both loops, beautiful knot." That had been what he said to himself. He was right. The knot was fine. The knot was perfect. It was the bloody rope that was the problem. Its strength left something to be desired.

He had started down the hole, having tied the other end of the rope around his waist. He was just beginning to wonder what he would do if the hole was deeper than the rope was long when the dratted rope snapped on him. His arms flailed around and his feet swarmed all over the chute beneath him, looking for hold, finding none. He slid and he fell and he slid some more. His stomach was officially dropped, and his lunch officially lost as soon as he had reached the bottom. The actual landing at the bottom in and of itself was something less than graceful. His feet had hit the ground and launched the rest of him forward, and he had landed flat on his face. Boy, that wasn't one of his favorite experiences in this tower. (He didn't trust rope again until many, many years later when he discovered the lack of solid ground beneath Spire. That was another one of his least favorite experiences, but for an entirely different reason.)

He looked down this hole twenty years later. He knew where it went; he knew it wouldn't give injuries he would seriously regret (though occasionally he'd scrape something, or land poorly). He hopped down it, stumbled upon landing and hopped down the next hole. He landed by stumbling again, and went to sit on his special chair.

He pushed the blue button, making the lid come down, and lowered himself a level. There he stayed for a minute or two, looking at his council of crystal pawns. His eyes then proceeded to wander to the sculpture of his parents. They seemed to be laughing at him for forgetting his explosives. "What are you looking at?" he grumped. He proceeded to wonder why he'd ever made them. He went down again, played the tunes the four rocks liked and continued on to his half-decimated lab.

After filling his container with about nine or ten deadly little figurines, he looked around his lab grimly. Despite his excited-ness, his obsessive compulsive nature drove him to clean it up a bit. He then saw fit to take the elevator up, to save time.

He stepped out of the elevator, his hair standing on end from all of the electrical pulses received on the way up. "What I wouldn't give to have someone here to touch right now." He snickered to himself, imagining his brother, Achenar, receiving the static shock of his life, simply by Sirrus touching him. With that amusing thought in mind, he made his way up those heaven-forsaken stairs again.

Once he had reached the top, he just stared at the linking chamber for a minute. He suddenly realized that he had forgotten what he was going to do once he got out. "Free Achenar of course," he told himself. He then came back at himself, "Since when have I liked Achenar? Why am I going to free _him?_ He'll just ruin everything with his bigness and stupidity." "It's because he's big and stupid that I need him. I can't do everything on my own." He suddenly realized he was having a full conversation with himself and stopped. "Yes, that is definitely a habit I am going to have to break."

He stepped into the linking chamber and threw one of the figurines on the ground, only realizing a split second later that he should have thrown it from a distance. Too late! The figurine exploded with a green flash flinging Sirrus against the wall like a rag doll. A piece of wall was thrown so far that it crashed into the elevator he had just used and made it plummet all the way down to his lab.

Sirrus staggered a bit, but managed to keep himself standing. He held his head-- it hurt like crazy-- and desperately hoped this wasn't some kind of omen as to how his freedom would be. Staggering through the jagged opening he had created, he opened the container holding the linking book and put his hand on the page, getting out of that miserable spire once and for all.


	2. Tomahna for the First Time

All right, sorry for the wait. (For those of you who are actually reading this) Here's more of the wonderful, fabulous, magnificent story about Sirrus and Achenar's escape.

When Sirrus arrived in the world the linking book linked to, he was puzzled. This wasn't Myst. If it wasn't Myst where was it? Did his parents move while he was stuck in Spire? He furrowed his brow at his surroundings. For some unapparent reason, his and presumably his brother's prison books were in a big, golden, prison ball.

"No, we wouldn't want our linking books to escape now would we, father?" he muttered to himself.

He was just about to put his hand on the page of the blue linking book when he noticed something out the window in front of the ball. Across a body of water was a house-like thing. It had a glass door, perfect for looking into. What he saw there was his little sister, Yeesha just sitting there staring at a dress hanging on a stand.

That was when he remembered his evil plan again. A huge grin not unlike the grinch's spread across his face.

He looked around for a way to open the prison ball and found a little lever. He pulled it and the ball began to roll in place. Sirrus was standing on an unmoving platform, but the motion made him very dizzy nonetheless. As he walked out of the ball he wondered why his father had built it. He walked until he saw this shaft with a button next to it. On a whim, he pushed the button and a platform came whizzing down at roughly the speed of light. He hoped that it wouldn't go that fast while he was on it, but doubted it wouldn't. He stepped onto it and pushed another button, feeling his innards drop to his feet as the platform whizzed back up again. When he walked out of the door revealed he discovered that this hidden elevator was in his parents' fireplace.

"Never above using a good trick twice, are you, father?" he once again muttered to himself. He had grown accustomed to talking to his father when his father wasn't even beginning to be around.

He heard mechanisms working and saw a bridge nearby swinging over to an even nearer platform. He decided that the bridge was probably being worked by someone, so he hid under his parents' bed. He heard the sound of the bridge swinging back over to the other side of its track. Peeking out under the ruffles, he saw Yeesha walk by the glass door. That was when the lights suddenly went out. Father's doing most likely.

He walked out onto the platform and realized he was in plain view in broad daylight. He slipped under the walkway between his parents' house-thingy and the next house-thingy and hid among the rocks. Yeesha started playing an ocarina in a nearby house-thingy. What a nice tune.

The middle-child of Atrus heard footsteps approaching and passing overhead. He looked up through the cracks in the walkway and saw a glimpse of the owner of the footsteps' face. Was that…? Surely it couldn't be that strange, quiet man he had seen towards the beginning of his imprisonment. That just wouldn't be probable for him to still be around, would it? Nah… Sure did look like him though. After a while of hearing the footsteps of the man that looked like the quiet guy go back and forth and back and forth for several hours, he heard the power kick back in. He then heard Yeesha patter over the walkway he was under, waited for her to pass, reached into his container, pulled out one of those crystal figurines and through it at the walkway directly above him.

The realization that the walkway would then come down on top of him came just in time for him to jump into the water and avoid getting squished. When he was quite sure that the walkway was finished exploding, he came back out and saw that the familiar looking man had been on the walkway when he blew it up and was now lying like a lump close to where he was just hiding. Sirrus turned the man over and looked at him.

By Jove! It _was_ the quiet man who didn't rescue him when he begged him to! Imagine that! Atrus must really have leached onto him when he had freed him from D'ni. He bet Atrus didn't even know this man's name. The thought made Sirrus chuckle. Well, hopefully Mr. Quiet wouldn't give him anymore trouble. It looked like he was out for the count.

He started climb up the pile of rubble toward his parents' house-thingy. This was amazingly difficult to do as this particular rubble pile was very steep. He was almost to the top.

"Sirrus? Whatchya doin' here?"

Sirrus let out a short yelp and nearly fell down the whole way down. Adrenaline thoroughly pumping through his body and clinging like there was no tomorrow to the rubble pile. He looked up and saw his little sister's face peering down at him with a huge grin attached to it.

"And why'd ya blow up the walkway?"

"Yeesha, you frightened me."

"Well, I've been starin' at ya for a while, just watchin' ya climb up this pile o' rubble. You shoulda' noticed me before I called down to ya."

"Well, I didn't. To answer your questions, I'm here because I am smart, and I didn't blow up the walkway… uhh… your friend stepped on a loose board and sent the whole walkway falling."

"Somehow, I doubt it, but since you're my brother, I believe ya. Need a hand?" Yeesha grinned down at him.

"That would be nice." Sirrus readjusted his grip on the rocks, preparing to grab whatever she'd toss down at him for aid.

Yeesha just grinned wider, "Okay. I'll give ya a hand" She clapped her hands repeatedly.

"Not helpful, Yeesha," Sirrus grunted as he hauled himself the rest of the way up.

"So seriously, what are ya doin' here? I mean, I don't think mom and dad woulda' let ya out."

"Is it inconceivable that I'm here because I'm smart?" She just stared at him. "Okay. You want the truth, Yeesha? I'm here to kidnap you."

"Seriously?" When Sirrus grinned in reply, hers disappeared. "Oh… uh… hey look! A gecko!"

Sirrus looked over his shoulder and did in fact see a gecko. "Yes, that's very nice. Wh—" She was gone. He rolled his eyes, ticked at himself that he would have fallen for such a stupid ploy. He started running in the only direction she could have gone. He ran by his parents' house thingy and saw her running into the fireplace. He sprinted to the fireplace and grabbed at her as the fireplace started closing on him. He got something, but whatever it was fell off. That didn't matter though. The fireplace had finished closing and it had done so on his right hand.

"OWWWWWWWWW!" he yanked his hand out of the closed fireplace and held it in his left, that would leave a mark. He snarled and razzle-frazzled at Yeesha. When the fireplace opened again, Yeesha was no longer there, as he had figured. Fortunately for him, the little square code above the entrance was already entered, so the platform just went down when he pressed the button. He saw that she hadn't bothered to pick up what had fallen off when he grabbed it. It was a necklace with a blue medallion in it. He thought about picking it up himself, but decided not to.

When he reached the hidden room with the big golden prison ball in it, he saw that Yeesha hadn't gone anywhere. She was just standing there staring at it. He noticed that it had rolled over again so that the books were open but the entrance wasn't. He also noticed a lever that he guessed was probably what would change that. He went up to Yeesha and grabbed her left arm with his left hand.

"Hey!" she yelled at him and started to squirm, "Leggo!"

"What if I told you that I was kidding when I said I was going to kidnap you?"

"I wouldn't believe you."

"Ah…" He pulled the lever and watched the ball roll in place, then noticed for the first time that as the ball was rolling, the prison books inside closed and slid off to the sides. He considered asking Yeesha why on earth their father decided to do this then figured that she would know the answer to that just as much as he did.

He dragged Yeesha into the golden prison ball and then flipped the switch that would make the ball roll over again, but more importantly, open the linking books. When the ball and books finished doing their thing, he took hold of Yeesha's hand and put it on the page of the blue book. She disappeared. He then put his own hand on the book's page, and disappeared.


End file.
